Goong Pad Saam Sahai (กุ้งผัดสามสหาย)

กุ้งผัดสามสหาย

Goong pad saam sahai is the Thai restaurant's answer to the quick prawn stir-fry: king prawns flash-fried with crushed garlic, tossed with the "three friends" — baby corn, mangetout and mushrooms in the classic combination — in a light soy and oyster seasoning, and finished with a snowfall of crispy fried garlic.

It is a wok dish built on order of operations. Nothing in it cooks for long; the skill is in the sequence.

The Recipe (serves 3 · ~20 min)

Allergens: shellfish, soy

Prawns

Vegetables

Seasoning

The Method

1. Prep. Peel and butterfly the prawns, removing the dark vein. String the mangetout — pull the side fibres from both ends so they eat tender. Halve the baby corn; slice the mushrooms; crush the garlic.
2. Crisp half the garlic. Heat the oil and fry half the crushed garlic until golden and crisp. Lift it out and reserve — it goes back on top at the end.
3. Stir-fry in order. Stir-fry the remaining garlic, then the baby corn until it begins to soften. Add the prawns and toss until they just turn pink. Add the mangetout and mushrooms with a splash of water. Season with light soy, oyster sauce and sugar; toss to coat.
4. Finish. Taste and adjust — it should be savoury with a faint sweetness. Sprinkle with white pepper and the reserved crispy garlic, and serve at once.

The three friends

The name is a formula, not a fixed list. Thai sources use "สามสหาย" for whatever three ingredients the cook happens to pair: the classic prawn version pairs baby corn, snow peas and mushrooms; a health-conscious version reads it as three mushrooms — eryngii, shimeji and enoki; a pungent southern variant builds it from sator beans and cha-om with glass noodles, seasoned with pickled garlic brine. Even a plain vegetable stir-fry of choy sum, cabbage and meatballs sails under the same name.

The restaurant standard is the vegetable trio. Baby corn for sweetness and crunch, mangetout for that thin green snap, mushrooms for body. The menu version this page follows matches Thai Aroy Dee's own description: king prawns, baby corn, mangetout, mushrooms, crushed garlic, soy.

The technique

Crisp the garlic first. Half the crushed garlic is fried in the oil until golden and crisp, then lifted out and reserved. It returns at the end, on top, where it keeps its crunch instead of burning in the wok. The rest is stir-fried as the flavour base.

Order the wok by cooking time. Baby corn goes in first — it takes the longest. The prawns join next and are tossed only until they turn pink. The mangetout and mushrooms go in last with a splash of water, so they steam-cook to just-tender and carry the seasoning.

String the peas. The one step home cooks skip: pulling the side fibres from the mangetout. Old pods string easily, and a stringy bite ruins the dish's clean, quick finish.

The seasoning

The sauce is short — light soy, oyster sauce, a little sugar, white pepper. It should coat, not pool. Some cooks season with seasoning sauce and fried-garlic oil as the base; the balance is savoury with a faint sweetness, sharpened by the pepper.

Serving

Straight from the wok to the plate, with jasmine rice. The vegetables should still have bite, the prawns should still be springy, and the crispy garlic should still crunch.

Serving

• Sides: Steamed jasmine rice
• Notes: Served immediately — the vegetables should still have bite

Cook's Tips

• Keep the heat high and the toss constant — this is a three-minute dish, not a braise
• Prawns go in after the slowest vegetable; they turn rubbery if they lead
• Stringing the mangetout is the step home cooks skip — it is the difference between tender and stringy
• The crispy garlic is half the dish — fry it first and reserve it, don't let it burn in the wok
• A splash of water at the end steams the vegetables and carries the seasoning

Variations

• Three mushrooms. The health-conscious version reads the three friends as eryngii, shimeji and enoki mushrooms
• Sator and cha-om. A pungent regional variant with sator beans and cha-om, seasoned with pickled garlic brine
• Any three vegetables. The name is a formula — choy sum, cabbage and meatballs turn up under the same title with a thick seasoning sauce

Sources

This recipe is translated from the following Thai-language sources. Where they disagree, we've said so.